Unleashed

by Nancy Holder

  He reached the landing and turned right, moving down a short corridor featuring one more deer head and small wall sconces that looked like old-fashioned gas lights. A wooden door to her left was ajar, and the light from the hall revealed a bathroom sink. Then he pushed on the door at the end of the hall, and it opened.

  The wall sloped, and there was a small skylight positioned above a double bed covered with a burgundy-and-gray plaid blanket. A carved square headboard held two brass pots of ivy. On a nightstand was an antique lamp of cranberry-colored glass. There was a dresser with a circular mirror. On it was a bottle of furniture polish and a rag. She smelled the lemony odor of the polish and, beneath that, dust. Maybe he’d spent the past several days cleaning, instead of coming to her mother’s funeral, to make her feel at home. But it wasn’t like her old room at all. The room that had been destroyed by fire.

  “Thanks,” she said stiffly.

  He set down her suitcase and crossed to the bottle of wood polish and the rag. He picked them up. “You must be hungry.”

  “I’m not. Really. I’m just tired.” She didn’t look at him but kept her gaze firmly trained on a braided rag rug on the wooden floor.

  When the door clicked shut, she realized he’d left the room. Wearily she sank onto the bed, stretching herself forward on her stomach. She brought her fists underneath her chin and burst into sobs. Then she bit down on her knuckle to force herself to stop. The last thing she wanted was for him to come back in and investigate.

  Thunder rumbled; rain fell on her skylight, then stopped. Finally she quieted. She pulled out her phone to call Kimi. No service. Then there must be a landline somewhere. Most people had a phone in their kitchen.

  She got back up and went into the hall. As she reached the top of the stairs, she smelled smoke. She gasped and took the steps at a run. She was just about to scream when she spotted a stone fireplace on the opposite side of the room, a fire blazing away in the hearth. Instead of looking cozy, though, it sent a wave of fear crashing over her, as strong and real as the ocean. She almost ran back up the stairs.

  It’s okay. It’s normal.

  “Normal” was her new most hated word.

  She edged along the wall, trying not to see the animal heads, and found the entrance to the kitchen. She flicked on the overhead light, revealing a run-down, but clean-looking, kitchen. The dark green paint on a row of cabinets was peeling away, and the countertops were an ugly-white speckled Formica. The front of his ancient white refrigerator was bare except for a calendar with a wildlife scene and writing in just one square. That day. Katelyn was all it said.

  She was thirsty and opened the fridge, looking for a water pitcher or water bottles. There was very little inside except for a six-pack of beer, an open loaf of white bread, and a small bundle wrapped in butcher paper. Blood was seeping through the paper.

  “Gross,” she muttered, and slammed the door. She took a few steps backward, then ran her hand through her hair and looked around for a wall phone. Finding nothing, she started opening drawers. Notepads and pens from realtors, a package of rubber bands, utensils. A dog leash.

  She picked up the leash and vaguely remembered a dog from her visit there as a kid. Then she heard a light scratching on the back door, which was made of wood. Maybe it was the dog.

  With the leash in her hand, she cracked open the door. The kitchen light spilled onto a wide wooden porch that wrapped around the back of the house. Moonlight cast silver spangles on huge maples with dripping branches. The smells of wet earth and wood smoke, so different from the ocean, filled the air as she walked three steps off the porch, onto flat rocks arranged in a path—stepping stones.

  The broad green limbs of the tree directly in front of her rustled. Cocking her head, she toyed with the leash but stayed where she was.

  “Doggie?” she called softly.

  The back door slammed open against the wall, and she nearly leaped out of her skin. Whirling around, she saw her grandfather, a rifle at his side. Her eyes widened and she stumbled backward, toward the tree.

  “Katelyn!” he shouted. “Get in here now!”

  She lifted her chin and showed him the leash. “I was just looking for your dog—”

  “I don’t have a dog.” He looked past her to the trees. “Anymore.”

  “Hello?” a male voice called from the front of the house. “Is this a bad time?”

  Katelyn jumped, startled. Then she heaved a sigh of frustration. She didn’t want to have to be social. All she wanted was a drink of water and a working phone.

  “We have company,” he said. Then, more softly, “Please. Come inside. It’s not safe out here.”

  Not safe? Two feet from the house, and him with a gun? It frightened her to know there were loaded weapons in his house.

  “Grandfather, Grandpa,” she said, trying out names to call him. “I don’t want company. I want to call my best friend. Do you have a phone?”

  “Hello?” the voice called again. “Dr. McBride?”

  “Be right there,” her grandfather replied in a loud voice.

  She stepped up onto the porch and he relaxed slightly.

  “When you were little, you called me Extra Daddy.” Her grandfather smiled very faintly. “You didn’t understand what a grandfather was. So you thought I was an extra daddy. Actually, you pronounced it ‘Eee-di-di.’ ”

  She didn’t remember that. “I’ll call you Ed,” she announced, deciding that the abbreviation for Extra Daddy was about what she could handle.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He tugged on an imaginary hat. “Now, Arkansas is the South, and we got a thing called Southern hospitality. And we have a guest.”

  She huffed. “So if I say hi, then can I call Kimi?”

  “Then you can call Kimi.”

  They walked back into the kitchen, where she wiped the soles of her boots on a faded blue mat that had seen better days. She quickly shut and locked the door. Then she walked with her grandfather into the living room. The front door was open, but the porch light was off, and someone tall was standing on the porch, silhouetted by the moonlight.

  Katelyn’s grandfather flicked a switch by the door and the porch light came on. The figure beneath its bluish glare was a guy. A cute guy, actually, with closely trimmed dark brown hair and strangely colored eyes, maybe green—it was hard to say—but they were very light against his cocoa-colored skin. They were almond-shaped, and his cheekbones were high, giving him hollows in his cheeks. He had a square jaw and a nice, wide mouth. The best word for him was “exotic.”

  He was wearing a long-sleeved black T-shirt with the sleeves pushed up to his forearms, jeans, and scuffed cowboy boots caked with mud. A leather braid encircled his left wrist, and words were stamped on it. She couldn’t make out the letters. She didn’t want to stare, so she didn’t look very hard.

  But it was difficult not to.

  He slung his thumbs in the pockets of his jeans and smiled at her. It was riveting. There was something about him that made her tingle. Warmth. Charm.

  “Hey, Katelyn.” His accent was softer than Ed’s. She found herself smiling back, even though a minute earlier nothing on earth would have made her smile.

  “Trick,” Ed said in greeting. Was his name Trick, or was he playing a trick?

  “You know the rules, Dr. M.,” he said. “You have to invite me in.”

  “You have to be invited in?” Katelyn asked. “So, what? Are you a vampire?” Her question sounded more sarcastic than she meant it to, and she reddened.

  The guy chuckled—and remained where he was.

  “Don’t be a fool, son,” Ed said, gesturing for the guy to come into the house. But the guy shook his head.

  “Make it official.”

  “Come in, now.” Though his words were similar to the ones he’d used with Katelyn, his tone was anything but. Teasing, a bit arch. Clearly, these two were friends. Was this some weird game they played? She didn’t know what to make of it.

  “Thank you, sir.” Th
e guy reached down and pulled off his cowboy boots, revealing fresh white socks. Katelyn didn’t know why, but the sight of his stockinged feet embarrassed her a little, like seeing him in his boxers or something.

  The guy crossed the threshold, and she saw that his eyes were indeed very green, like the shallows of a lagoon. Come on in, they seemed to say. The water is fine.

  There was dark stubble on his cheeks and around his mouth. A quick glance at his leather wristband revealed a few letters: R.I.P. She was intrigued. Had someone close to him died?

  “You missed supper,” Ed told him as he led the way toward the fireplace. Two overstuffed leather chairs sat in front of a coffee table littered with hunting magazines. As the heat from the fire penetrated her bones, Katelyn stiffened, feeling ridiculous, but unable to stop the alarm bells from clanging in her head. “Because we didn’t have any.”

  “Didn’t cook the bird?” the guy asked. “It’ll spoil.”

  “Wait,” Katelyn said. “Is your name really Trick?”

  The guy paused as they reached the chairs, gesturing for her to sit. Katelyn remained standing. “Actually, it’s Vladimir, but no one has called me that in forever.” He grinned at her. “Very few people around here have a death wish.”

  Ed snorted. “Tough guy. That’s the sort of talk landed you in hot water.”

  Trick shook his head, looking suddenly serious. “Lies landed me in hot water.”

  “If you had a lick of sense, you’d stick with your own kind and leave them boys alone.”

  Katelyn’s eyes widened. His own kind? It was obvious Trick wasn’t completely Caucasian. Could that be what her grandfather was referring to? Was Ed a racist?

  “I’ve got a six-pack of … soda,” Ed announced. “Might have a box of crackers.”

  He left the room before anyone could answer. Trick remained, though he didn’t sit. Katelyn kept standing as well. They were way too close to the fire for her comfort, and she was dying of embarrassment from what Ed had just said to Trick. Or possibly said. Maybe Ed meant something else entirely. Trick seemed unfazed. She wanted to say something, apologize for Ed if need be, but she was the newcomer here, and she really didn’t know what was going on.

  A log in the fireplace snapped and sparks showered down. It was the first fire she’d encountered since the quake, and she could feel her anxiety building into what might become a panic attack. She’d never had one, but her mom had after Katelyn’s dad had been killed. Katelyn wanted to race out of the room. Yet if she did anything like that, it would serve as more “proof” that she needed her grandfather’s version of normal.

  Trying to look casual, she wrapped her arms around herself and sauntered away from the fire—and from him. Her nerves and the wood smoke were making her sick.

  “So, you’re the granddaughter,” Trick said, giving her a slow, lazy once-over that made her flush to the roots of her hair. Kimi had been a huge flirt, which made Katelyn a flirt by association. So she was used to appraising looks. But this guy made it seem too intimate, like it meant more than it was supposed to.

  “I guess,” she said reluctantly. She didn’t want to be related to Ed.

  “Paternity test results not back yet?” He grinned lopsidedly. Then he grew very serious, lowering his head. “I’m sorry about your mother.”

  It was more than Ed had offered. Sympathy from a complete stranger, and none from her grandfather. She’d almost forgotten about that.

  “Thanks.” Her throat tightened. Afraid she was going to cry, she turned her back, pretending to stare at an oil painting, this one of mountains, trees, and a waterfall. Her gaze fell on the artist’s signature. M.M. Mordecai McBride?

  “Do you and my grandfather usually drink beer together?” she asked.

  “I’m underage,” he said, dodging. “Soda sounds ducky.”

  Ducky?

  He came up beside her. She felt his body heat and smelled rainwater and soap. Droplets of rain clung to his long eyelashes. Part of her was planning her conversation with Kimi, looking for words to describe him. Interesting? Weird? Hot?

  “My last name’s Sokolov,” he said. “Russian.”

  To go with the Vladimir. She was mildly surprised that he wasn’t Native American or something. “Are you from Russia?”

  “Nope.” He sounded amused. “I’m from Wolf Springs.”

  Now she was afraid she sounded as close-minded as Ed. “What year are you in?” Maybe he didn’t even go to high school. He looked older than seventeen or eighteen.

  “Senior, like you. This year’s gonna take forever. I cannot wait to graduate.”

  “Same here,” she said, feeling herself thaw a little. He had a great smile.

  He touched his forehead, and it took her a second to realize he was reflexively pushing back phantom tendrils of hair. The buzz cut was new, then.

  “I’d probably better warn you,” he went on. “Everyone knows you’re coming and there’s been a thousand theories about why. Aside from the real one.”

  She thought about Samohi. Over thirty-five hundred students went to her school, and still the new kids got noticed. She supposed that when there was one-seventh the number of kids, it made sense that you got noticed more, especially on a late transfer.

  He held up a finger. “News travels faster than you can text. And gossip travels faster. Except you can’t really text here, because we have crappy cell coverage.”

  He pushed back more ghost hair again. He caught her looking, and he shrugged. “Sorry. I had to have my head shaved for the surgery.”

  “Oh.” She was mildly shocked, but she was too polite to show it.

  Unsure what else to do, she studied the next oil painting. It was of a tree, with a deer peering from behind it. In the foreground was a big rock shaped vaguely like a heart. And behind the deer, a shadow, also somewhat heart-shaped. The signature on this one wasn’t M.M., but she couldn’t make it out.

  “I was messing with you,” he said suddenly.

  “What?” she asked, confused.

  “The surgery. That was a joke. Do you always take everything literally?”

  She colored. It was true that she’d lost her sense of humor over the past weeks, but he was a stranger. How was she supposed to know when he was full of it?

  “What rules were you talking about?” she asked, quickly changing the topic.

  “Rules?” He looked from the painting to her.

  “Getting invited in.”

  “Oh, it’s a court thing,” he said, waving it away. “Some guys at school …” He suddenly looked uncomfortable. “Anyway.”

  “Oh,” Katelyn murmured. But a court thing? What did that mean? Before Katelyn could prod for any more information, Ed came back with two cans of Diet Coke and one can of beer cradled against his chest, and the discussion was bookmarked. He handed one of the soda cans to Katelyn and the other to Trick and popped the top of the beer for himself.

  “No crackers?” Trick asked.

  Ed shook his head. “All’s I got in the pantry is spaghetti sauce and rat turds.” He slid a glance toward her. “We got rats, by the way.”

  Was that the source of the scratching? She shuddered and decided she wasn’t thirsty anymore. Rats couldn’t get into soda cans, but they could climb all over them.

  “Anyone’s a vampire, it’s your pappy,” Trick said. “He lives on air. You cook?”

  It took her a minute to track that Trick meant her. “He wouldn’t like what I make,” Katelyn said. “I’m a vegetarian.”

  Ed looked at her as though she had informed him that she was a vampire. “Hunting’s natural, you know. We’re predators.”

  “I’m not,” she insisted, feeling fresh anger. She had never understood hunting. “How can anyone feel good about killing an animal?”

  “What you eat from the supermarket …,” Ed began.

  “Vegetarian,” Trick cut in. “In search of the wild tofu beast.”

  Her temper flared again. “I need to call Kimi,” she told he
r grandfather. “She hasn’t heard from me and she’ll be worried.”

  Neither of them said anything in response and she stared while Trick guzzled down the soda and gave the empty can a little squeeze. Katelyn wondered if they recycled up in the Ozarks. She doubted it.

  “Much obliged for the soda, Dr. M.,” Trick said. “I’ll be by bright and early Monday morning.” He smiled apologetically. “Don’t know if Doc’s told you, but we need to leave by six-thirty on account of him living so far away from Wolf Springs.”

  “Leave? Six-thirty?” she said. Had she missed something?

  “I’m your ride to school,” Trick said. “Didn’t the doc tell you?”

  “We ain’t had much time to talk,” Ed offered.

  Trick turned to Katelyn. “I paid him fifty bucks. You’re going to class me up.” He headed for the kitchen. He was still in his stockinged feet, and now that she knew they had rats, she winced every time he took a step. She was never going anywhere in that house without wearing shoes. Forget about her bedroom slippers.

  Trick reappeared and crossed to the front door. When he opened it, she was surprised to see that it had begun to rain again. He bent over to put on his boots, giving her a great view of his butt—a nice butt—and her grandfather glanced at her just in time to catch her gaze. She turned her head, flushing.

  Suddenly the same low moan she’d heard in the truck echoed through the plink-plink-plink of the raindrops on the porch stairs. Low, eerie, mournful. It was followed by a hollow thud, and then another, in a pulsing rhythm. A chorus of moans joined in, and then they rose in pitch and intensity and the hair on Katelyn’s neck stood up. They weren’t moans. They were howls.

  “Ah, de children of de night,” Trick said in a thick Count Dracula accent. “Vat music dey make!”

  “I thought they were starting tomorrow,” Ed muttered. “Dang fools.”

  The wolf seminar. Katelyn brightened. She was willing to bet that those howls were the attendees.

  “Is that drumming?” she asked Ed.

  He rolled his eyes. “Supposed to go on for days and days.”